Most of what you need to know about CrossFit can be summarized in a single equation:
Power = (Force x Distance) / Time
(Note: This is a simplification of the exact formula, which considers the angle of the force relative to the angle of the movement. More on this in future posts.)
Perhaps half of all CrossFit coaching comes down to emphasizing the practical applications of this formula subject to the constraints of our anatomy and physiology.
For the moment, consider the formula as written. We know we want to maximize power, but how? Three ways:
1. For a given force (weight) and a given distance (full ROM times the number of reps) minimize the time.
2. For a given force (weight) and a given time (e.g., 20 minutes) maximize the distance (reps, rounds)
3. For a given distance and a given time, maximize the weight.
When doing any given WOD as RX’d, exactly one of these categories will apply. “Fran” falls into the first category, “Cindy” into the second, and ME (maximum effort) WOD’s into the third. But it doesn’t have to be only this way. Sometimes, it may pay to give up going RX’d and instead focus on the other two possibilities.
Consider “Fran.” The typical goal is to get to the RX’d weight as soon as possible and then work at cutting down the time. But there are two alternatives:
Get to the RX’d weight, but cut down the reps (distance) to the point where the WOD can be done unbroken. For example instead of doing (7,7,7), (5,5,5), (3,3,3) on the thrusters, consider doing a “60% Fran,” 12, 9, 6 on pull-ups and thrusters. But do it unbroken! Learn what it feels like not to rest. The first thing you may find is that a “60% Fran” does not take 60% of the time; in fact, it may take as little as 40% the time. Much of the time on a full RX’d “Fran” is typically spent resting. The transition from doing each round in three sets to doing each round unbroken eliminates 12 breaks! Once you learn that you can do a “60% Fran” unbroken in, say, 3 minutes, your entire attitude towards the WOD may change. If you can do 60% in 3 minutes, then your goal should be raised to 70% in 3:30, then 80% in 4:00, until you’re at 100% in 5:00.
The second approach is to do the full number of reps, but cut the weight (force) until the reps can all be done unbroken. Instead of doing 95 lbs in 3 sets per round, cut to a weight that allows you to do each round unbroken. If that means going to 45 lbs, so be it. If your “Fran” RX’d is, say, 7:30, what would it be with a 45 lb bar? 5:00? Less? Find out, and then make that time your goal as you steadily increase the weight back up to 95 lbs.
We’re conditioned to think that when we do a WOD like “Fran” as RX’d, we’re not scaling. Here’s how to change that perspective: Expand the definition of RX’d to include a time limit, say 5 minutes (or pick your own time). Now, with three dimensions defining the WOD (force, distance, and time) it’s easy to see that most of us are always scaling.
When the WOD is done as traditionally thought to be “RX’d” but in more than, say, 5 minutes, we’re scaling time. When the WOD is done in 5 minutes but with less than 95 lbs (or with band pull-ups) we’re scaling force. And when the WOD is done in 5 minutes with 95 lbs but less than 21-15-9 reps (or less than full ROM) we’re scaling distance. So really, we’re always scaling. (If you’ve got a 5-minute “Fran” just redefine your standard to be a 4-minute “Fran”)
It’s all just a question of which dimension we scale. CrossFit is about constant variation. Considered varying your dimensions.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Ending The Mystery Around Climate Change
There are three basic steps needed to predict existence or non-existence climate change: (1) Gathering and compiling the historical temperature data; (2) smoothing and correcting the historical data (e.g., assigning relative weights to some data that may cover larger geographic regions than other data, or adjusting for changes in the locations or surroundings of temperature-recording stations over time); and (3) running the smoothed and corrected historical data through a complex computer model.
The first step involves no science. The second step involves very little science. Both of these steps can and should be open to participation and review by the general public. The mechanisms for doing so already exist and are nearly costless.
The University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit states that it has lost or discarded the data from step 1 after it completed step 2. It refers to the data it created in step 2 as “value added data.” It is this value-added data that it has run through its computer models to reach its predictions.
Science demands that Step 1 be verifiable and reproducible. There is an easy way to accomplish this: All the historical data should be copied (most of it exists in the form of handwritten logs) and stored on the Internet. This is exactly the sort of process that Google excels (no pun) at. All the world’s temperature-recording stations should photocopy their logs and send them to Google.
Assuming each station has an average of one page of temperature readings per month for the last hundred years, and assuming there are one thousand stations, then this amounts to 1.2 million pages of data, a trivial amount for Google to handle. A page of characters requires about 2 kilobytes of storage. 1.2 million pages require less than 3 gigabytes of memory. An iphone has 32 gigabytes of memory. Even if the data were stored as photographs, requiring significantly more storage, this would still be a very small undertaking for Google. (Google already has satellite photos of virtually every square foot of the entire world available on-line for free.)
Next, the handwritten data should be put into spreadsheet form. This would significantly compress the data. (The collective public would be able to verify that the information from the photocopies of the logs was accurately transferred into spreadsheet form.) At one data point per day, one hundred years of data points would require a spreadsheet with 36,500 cells, one spreadsheet for each station.
Next step: Wikipidia. The on-line encyclopedia could create an entry for each recording station. Each entry should have a link to a Google spreadsheet with the station’s data, and whatever historical narrative the recording station has provided. For example, there would be information explaining how the location or procedures changed over the years. Was the recording station in Central Park moved over the years, etc?
This narrative would then be available for those wishing to adjust and smooth the data (i.e., add value). There may be debate about how and why the raw data should be adjusted, but at least that debate could be in plain view of the general public. Someone with great historical knowledge of Central Park might be able to provide valuable insight into questions about why the data from 1958 look different than the same year’s data from another nearby location.
In sum, the process of getting through Step 1 and Step 2 can be easily placed in the public domain where it not only belongs, but also can be better handled. The final step would be for scientists to offer the details of their mathematical models for analyzing the value-added data set and to offer their predictions. It may very well be that less than one in one thousand people are capable of understanding such models and the math and science behind them, but the planet has six billion people, six million of whom qualify as being a “one in one thousand.”
The first step involves no science. The second step involves very little science. Both of these steps can and should be open to participation and review by the general public. The mechanisms for doing so already exist and are nearly costless.
The University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit states that it has lost or discarded the data from step 1 after it completed step 2. It refers to the data it created in step 2 as “value added data.” It is this value-added data that it has run through its computer models to reach its predictions.
Science demands that Step 1 be verifiable and reproducible. There is an easy way to accomplish this: All the historical data should be copied (most of it exists in the form of handwritten logs) and stored on the Internet. This is exactly the sort of process that Google excels (no pun) at. All the world’s temperature-recording stations should photocopy their logs and send them to Google.
Assuming each station has an average of one page of temperature readings per month for the last hundred years, and assuming there are one thousand stations, then this amounts to 1.2 million pages of data, a trivial amount for Google to handle. A page of characters requires about 2 kilobytes of storage. 1.2 million pages require less than 3 gigabytes of memory. An iphone has 32 gigabytes of memory. Even if the data were stored as photographs, requiring significantly more storage, this would still be a very small undertaking for Google. (Google already has satellite photos of virtually every square foot of the entire world available on-line for free.)
Next, the handwritten data should be put into spreadsheet form. This would significantly compress the data. (The collective public would be able to verify that the information from the photocopies of the logs was accurately transferred into spreadsheet form.) At one data point per day, one hundred years of data points would require a spreadsheet with 36,500 cells, one spreadsheet for each station.
Next step: Wikipidia. The on-line encyclopedia could create an entry for each recording station. Each entry should have a link to a Google spreadsheet with the station’s data, and whatever historical narrative the recording station has provided. For example, there would be information explaining how the location or procedures changed over the years. Was the recording station in Central Park moved over the years, etc?
This narrative would then be available for those wishing to adjust and smooth the data (i.e., add value). There may be debate about how and why the raw data should be adjusted, but at least that debate could be in plain view of the general public. Someone with great historical knowledge of Central Park might be able to provide valuable insight into questions about why the data from 1958 look different than the same year’s data from another nearby location.
In sum, the process of getting through Step 1 and Step 2 can be easily placed in the public domain where it not only belongs, but also can be better handled. The final step would be for scientists to offer the details of their mathematical models for analyzing the value-added data set and to offer their predictions. It may very well be that less than one in one thousand people are capable of understanding such models and the math and science behind them, but the planet has six billion people, six million of whom qualify as being a “one in one thousand.”
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Women and Minorities Hardest Hit Again
There is a long running joke that the final New York Times headline will be, “World Ends! Women and Minorities Hit Hardest.” For now, we have this December 30, NYT Front Page update: “Black Workers In Auto Plants Losing Ground.”
Apparently, it’s one thing for the CEO’s of the Big Three automakers to appear on Capital Hill telling Congress that they wont make it another thirty days (putting one in ten US jobs at risk) if they don’t get an immediate eleven-figure handout; but its an entirely different thing when the New York Times notices that Black auto workers are “losing ground.” We haven’t seen something this big since the Chicago Tribune noticed that some of the 600 locations being closed by Starbucks were in heavily minority neighborhoods
The Times gets right to work laying out the data. “By last month, nearly 20,000 African-American auto workers had lost jobs, a 13.9 percent decline in employment, since the recession began last December, according to government jobs data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal Washington research firm.”
How does this compare to the loss of jobs by other groups over the same period? No comment. That's the kind of thing conservative research firms probably specialize in. Instead, we get this inane comparison; “[The 13.9% decline in employment by Black autoworkers] compares with a 4.4 percent decline for all workers in manufacturing.” It “compares” only if you are trying to mislead the reader. What possible relevance is a comparison of the decline of Black autoworkers to the decline of all workers in all manufacturing?
“As with most recessions, African Americans have been hit harder by this recession than other workers. The overall unemployment rate for blacks increased to 11.2 percent in November, an increase of 2.8 percentage points over last year. By comparison, national unemployment last month was 6.7 percent, up two percentage points from a year ago."
Yes, that’s one comparison. Here’s another comparison: Black unemployment has gone from 92 per thousand to 112 per thousand, a relative increase of 21.74%. All other unemployment has gone from 47 per thousand to 67 per thousand, a relative increase of 42.55%. Put more simply, for every five workers who were unemployed a year ago, there are now seven; but for every five Black workers who were unemployed a year ago, there are now six. Who is being hit harder during this recession?
“About 150 of the nations 2,000 minority dealerships have closed this year, and 300 could shut by the middle of January.” So now, the proxy for measuring the impact on Blacks is the impact on minorities? Blacks. Minorities. Whatever. This year, 7.5% of minority dealerships have closed. If you're reading the New York Times, you know better than to bother asking how non-minority dealerships have fared.
Apparently, it’s one thing for the CEO’s of the Big Three automakers to appear on Capital Hill telling Congress that they wont make it another thirty days (putting one in ten US jobs at risk) if they don’t get an immediate eleven-figure handout; but its an entirely different thing when the New York Times notices that Black auto workers are “losing ground.” We haven’t seen something this big since the Chicago Tribune noticed that some of the 600 locations being closed by Starbucks were in heavily minority neighborhoods
The Times gets right to work laying out the data. “By last month, nearly 20,000 African-American auto workers had lost jobs, a 13.9 percent decline in employment, since the recession began last December, according to government jobs data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal Washington research firm.”
How does this compare to the loss of jobs by other groups over the same period? No comment. That's the kind of thing conservative research firms probably specialize in. Instead, we get this inane comparison; “[The 13.9% decline in employment by Black autoworkers] compares with a 4.4 percent decline for all workers in manufacturing.” It “compares” only if you are trying to mislead the reader. What possible relevance is a comparison of the decline of Black autoworkers to the decline of all workers in all manufacturing?
“As with most recessions, African Americans have been hit harder by this recession than other workers. The overall unemployment rate for blacks increased to 11.2 percent in November, an increase of 2.8 percentage points over last year. By comparison, national unemployment last month was 6.7 percent, up two percentage points from a year ago."
Yes, that’s one comparison. Here’s another comparison: Black unemployment has gone from 92 per thousand to 112 per thousand, a relative increase of 21.74%. All other unemployment has gone from 47 per thousand to 67 per thousand, a relative increase of 42.55%. Put more simply, for every five workers who were unemployed a year ago, there are now seven; but for every five Black workers who were unemployed a year ago, there are now six. Who is being hit harder during this recession?
“About 150 of the nations 2,000 minority dealerships have closed this year, and 300 could shut by the middle of January.” So now, the proxy for measuring the impact on Blacks is the impact on minorities? Blacks. Minorities. Whatever. This year, 7.5% of minority dealerships have closed. If you're reading the New York Times, you know better than to bother asking how non-minority dealerships have fared.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Survivor: Detroit (December, 20 NY Times Editorial)
“It came as a relief that President Bush was willing to break free of ideology long enough to keep General Motors and Chrysler from collapsing into a pile of rubble on his watch.” (Apparently important things only happen under the president's watch, never congress'.)
The New York Times does not elaborate on exactly what ideology the president broke free of. Perhaps it was that pesky constitutional ideology that restricts spending decisons to congress.
The House went through the exercise of passing a spending bill to bail out the auto industry. The Senate went through a similar effort and voted against its bill. For those of us into the whole constitutional ideology thing (e.g., the New York Times, when it comes to, say, warrantless wiretaps) this would seem to suggest that Detroit would not get taxpayer money, since both houses of congress did not sign off on a final spending bill.
But apparently this is different. “The $17.4 billion in loans that the administration has offered [General Motors and Chrysler]—which the Senate did not have the good sense to do—represent a necessary bridge over the road to liquidation, protecting the economy from a potential wave of additional job losses.”
Get it? It’s okay for the president to act in defiance of the will of congress when the Senate does not have “the good sense” to do what is necessary. If congress makes a decision to do or not do something, it is not congress that is actually responsible; it is the president. After all, we can't have things ending up in a pile of rubble just because the president doesn't have the nerve to act in defiance of congress. Can we?
The New York Times does not elaborate on exactly what ideology the president broke free of. Perhaps it was that pesky constitutional ideology that restricts spending decisons to congress.
The House went through the exercise of passing a spending bill to bail out the auto industry. The Senate went through a similar effort and voted against its bill. For those of us into the whole constitutional ideology thing (e.g., the New York Times, when it comes to, say, warrantless wiretaps) this would seem to suggest that Detroit would not get taxpayer money, since both houses of congress did not sign off on a final spending bill.
But apparently this is different. “The $17.4 billion in loans that the administration has offered [General Motors and Chrysler]—which the Senate did not have the good sense to do—represent a necessary bridge over the road to liquidation, protecting the economy from a potential wave of additional job losses.”
Get it? It’s okay for the president to act in defiance of the will of congress when the Senate does not have “the good sense” to do what is necessary. If congress makes a decision to do or not do something, it is not congress that is actually responsible; it is the president. After all, we can't have things ending up in a pile of rubble just because the president doesn't have the nerve to act in defiance of congress. Can we?
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